


I found peace in your violence

by ananbeth



Series: The Old Guard AU [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Immortals, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Pre-Relationship, The Old Guard AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ananbeth/pseuds/ananbeth
Summary: in the beginning, it was just the two of them.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: The Old Guard AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920832
Comments: 4
Kudos: 123





	I found peace in your violence

**Author's Note:**

> to anyone who follows me on Tumblr, sorry this is not new - I just want to capture these pics on here as well :)

Annabeth has watched him die many times. Too many times to count. And many times by her own hand. She has seen his body be torn apart only to be stitched back together again by invisible needle and thread. She has watched the life refill his eyes and the breath gasp back into his lungs.

But the fear lingers.

What if this time, he doesn’t. What if this strange spell or curse or gift that has been bestowed upon them both has gone and she is left behind.

These are the thoughts that plague Annabeth as she climbs the rocky hillside, grasping her hood up to keep her face covered, even in the darkness. She is guided by the light of the moon and pauses to look up at the night sky. Stars are scattered across the canvas of deep blue and black in rich constellations of light and she still marvels at the sight, just as she did as a child.

She pulls up her hood and moves on up the grassy hillside once again. Her sword and armour are heavy on her back but they are too precious to leave behind. Although it truly doesn’t matter if she dies or not, apparently, she will still always go down fighting. Five years at war has taught her innumerable ways to kill an opponent and even more ways to die herself.

Five long, bloody years, and where has it left her? Abandoned from her family who have disowned her. No treasures or statues to her name like the great Achilles or the kings who barely stepped foot on the battlefield in all of those years. Not even a single battlescar to show for her troubles. Just a curse to share with somebody who she barely considered to be an ally.

It has been four days since she last saw him with the parting promise to meet at their safe point. She looks up and sighs at having reached her destination. A small and mostly abandoned temple to the goddess Hestia. It is hidden in a rocky cliffside and covered with ivy. Annabeth wonders how the goddess does not curse more people for not treating her with the respect which is so ardently bestowed upon the other gods.

Pushing aside a curtain of vines, she lets her hood fall and does a scan of the empty space. There is a small altar at the end of the room but otherwise, it is truly barren. Leaves and dust cover the floor in a layer so thick it speaks of the years this place has been unentered. Her steps echo even as she shuffles a few steps inside.

Then there is suddenly a movement to her left and a weight on her shoulder. She twists sharply and grabs the offending limb, twisting it around and pulling out her dagger at the same time to press against her assailant’s throat.

“It’s me,” they hiss and Annabeth finds herself relaxing immediately at the sound of his voice.

She releases him and steps backwards, sheathing her dagger at her hip again. Out of the shadows, a tall figure steps towards her. He pulls down his own hood and meets her eyes.

“Perseus,” she says, her relief sounding too loud even to her own ears.

He smiles. “You’re alive.”

“As are you.”

He reaches out and grips her shoulder and she mirrors his stance so that they stand face to face in one another’s proximity.

“I’m glad.” His voice is too soft. She had met him in the chaos of war. Softness does not become them.

And yet.

Through her cloak, she feels his fingers squeeze and then loosen and then they are letting each other go.

“I wasn’t sure you would make it out of there,” she says as she drops her heavy armor on the floor and rests her sword against the wall.

Percy follows her lead and together, they set up a small camp for themselves for the night. She is not sure where they will go tomorrow, but tonight, they are safe. They are together.

She isn’t sure when she started trusting this man. But she does trust him. She trusts him enough to sleep with her back to him and she doesn’t trust anybody else that way. She had fought by his side and against him at the foot of the walls of Troy, on the beaches behind the Greek barricades, on the great plains of destroyed earth that stood between those places. They had fought and died and lived again and had found each other again and again and again.

Now they are left surviving together.

“Where will we go now?” he asks her, sitting across the fire from her, after they have eaten a small meal. His face is illuminated softly by the glowing embers.

Annabeth continues picking dirt out from under her fingernails with her dagger. “Back West again? I don’t know.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“I don’t think I have a home. My family believes I’m dead.”

They have spoken about their families before. Annabeth knows he has a mother who will wait for him to return home to her. Percy knows she does not have the same waiting for her. He knows she ran from men who would have sold her as a slave had she not escaped them and stolen a man’s armour to fight a man’s war. He had been the first and only living soul to know this secret.

“They should honour you.”

She looks up at him and the earnest expression on his face renders her speechless for a moment. His eyes look deep green in the light of the fire and she tries to remember wanting to hate this man, wanting to kill him.

She drops his gaze. “Should I demand my own statue?”

“It would be magnificent.”

Annabeth laughs and hears his laugh echo back before they both slowly die out.

“You should go home,” she tells him. “To your mother. She will be waiting for you.”

He nods somberly. “She will. I miss her.”

“Then why wont you go?”

He hasn’t stated anything to that fact but she knows. At some point along the way, words had not become a necessity between them. This is part of the reason she tries to keep her own expression under control now. Percy’s face hides no amount of his grief. Like he has already lost his mother.

“She wont understand this, whatever I have become. It won’t be her son returning to her.”

“You are still her son.”

“Am I? What are we, Annabeth? Are we human, are we gods? Or are we something else?”

“You think we are demons?”

He is shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think you are a demon.”

She feels her mouth pull into a small smile. “I don’t think you are either. And I think your mother will feel the same way. She loves you.”

He sighs, looking tired. Looking more than that. He seems exhausted by the weight of this decision. Annabeth stands.

“We should sleep. It’s been a long day.”

Percy nods. “You’re right. Tomorrow is another day.”

She touches his shoulder as she goes by him. “It is.”

Annabeth lays down on the cold stone and waits for Percy to do the same a few feet away. She has positioned herself closest to the door and he hasn’t noticed or doesn’t feel it is worth the argument. She stares at the stone roof above them as she listens to Percy’s breathing even out into a soft snore.

She waits a while longer, counting up to three hundred, before sitting up and then standing. She watches the slow rise and fall of Percy’s chest as she gathers her things and makes it to the doorway before Percy calls her name.

“You’re leaving me behind?” he asks in a quiet voice which is both accusatory and sad.

Letting out a sigh, Annabeth turns. Percy is sitting up and watching her with wide eyes.

“It’s better this way,” she tells him.

“Why? So that we are both alone?”

“Percy.”

He stands and moves over to her in an instant, grabbing her sword as a hostage between them.

“Tell me why.”

She lets him hold onto the sword as her shoulders drop. “You must go home to your mother. I won’t stand in the way of that.”

He frowns at her. “You’re not.”

Annabeth looks him in the eye. “Can you honestly tell me that if I wasn’t here, you would not already be on a ship home?”

“Why are you saying this?”

“Percy.”

He drops her sword and takes her by the shoulders. “Annabeth. Tell me why you believe this self-sacrifice is anything but torture for both of us.”

They have barely acknowledged each other as comrades, allies in war and life. Annabeth can’t do this, she can’t face this. She feels like she is tearing him away from some other life and doesn’t know how to stop. She has never been anything other than destructive. And yet, Percy looks at her with nothing but tenderness and holds her like she is the reason his heart stitches itself back together and beats again and again.

“Because,” she says, feeling tears prickle in her eyes. “When I’m with you, nothing else matters.”

His face softens but urgency still presses his fingertips into her skin. “Annabeth.”

That’s all he says. Just her name, like a prayer. It feels blasphemous.

“It’s too selfish. I have nothing I am leaving behind, but you…you can’t-”

“Annabeth.” Again, more urgent. “You mean more than anything.”

It is exactly what she had feared and been desperate to hear at the same time. She pushes her hands against his chest but there is no real strength there. She cannot push him away. They are bound together now, by fate or loyalty or something else.

“I’m choosing this,” he tells her. “We have no control over what has happened to us or how it brought us together. But I am choosing to stay with you.”

Her hands fist the material over his chest and she can feel the hammer of his heart mirror her own, like they are trying to reach one another. And all at once, she can’t bear to keep them apart and she throws herself at him, dropping her armour in a clatter behind her. Percy catches her as their mouths come together like the clash of swords in the heat of a battle. She is on fire as his hands grip her body and lift her against him and she scrambles to become even closer, letting his hair thread between her fingers as she presses her mouth to his again and again and again.

It is months and years of emotion spilling out of them both as they allow themselves to their truest desires at long last. And as Percy lays her against the cold stone and lowers the heat of his body over hers, Annabeth holds him close and realises that if death itself cannot keep them apart, then what right does she have to even try?


End file.
